Novokuznetsk

Novokuznetsk (Russian Новокузнецк, pop. 550,100) is a city in the Kemerovo Oblast, Siberian Federal District, Russia.

Founded as a Cossack outpost on the Tom River it was initially called Kuznetsk. It was here that Dostoevsky married his first wife, Maria Isaeva (1857). Joseph Stalin's rapid industrialization of the USSR transformed the sleepy town into a major coal mining and industrial center in the 1930s. In 1931-1932 the city was known as Novokuznetsk and in 1932-1961 as Stalinsk, after Stalin.